Did he look, on safari, in more honest truth, like Burke and Wills, or Stanley and Livingstone? What a tough guy Humboldt must have been, I thought, to do all that. What rigours he must have endured here 200 years ago.

And then this morning I stumbled upon his humble abode, next to the legislative chambers of the State of Guanajuato.

Casa Rul and Valencia
The Baron
Alejandro de Humboldt
resided in this house in August and September 1803
----
posted by the government 1938-39

the big place in the middle, the legislative building the next downhill.

Extra note 8 June. An experienced local guide with wider experience today offered the advice, which is at least reportable as opinion from here, that Humboldt went from here to Washington and told them that there was gold and silver here they ought to grab. The chronology sounds right and doubtless discussion with Jefferson would have covered more than the effects of the Amazon butterflies on the weather. Wikipedia:

...A tempestuous sea-voyage brought them to Mexico, where they resided for a year, travelling to different cities.

Next, Humboldt made a short visit to the United States, staying in the White House as a guest of President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, a scientist himself, was delighted to have Humboldt as a guest and the two held numerous intense discussions on scientific matters. After six weeks, Humboldt set sail for Europe from the mouth of the Delaware and landed at Bordeaux on August 3, 1804

We had come down the California coast through Humboldt County and among the intellectual and social tendrils of Humboldt University and we e...

Aztec Venus: Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli

"...the ancient Mexicans had calculated accurately that the orbits of the earth (c.365 days), the moon (c.260 days) and Venus (c.584 days) come together only once every 104 years (two Aztec ‘bundles of years’ or centuries’). Their knowledge of time and its cycles was truly stunning."

This was a place to store resources before travelling, then came live in Mexico on 26 May 2015

I find a blog concentrates the mind while travelling, Unlike our blogs of travel to Italy and Japan, I'm not familiar with Mexico, but increasingly aware of the immense social, political and historical complexity. So this blog begins well before we depart...

Some reading resources on the education reform issues sparking vioence and the drug war